Art and the Public Realm Bristol

Mark Titchner was commissioned by Bristol City Council in 2009 to develop a new public artwork for Bristol, working closely with the UK animation company Aardman Animation who funded the project as part of the development of their new HQ in Bristol’s Harbourside.

Titchner’s work involves an exploration of the tensions between the different belief systems that inform our society, be they religious, scientific or political. He works across a number of media including digital print, wall drawing, video, sculpture and in his installations he often employs motifs taken from advertising, religious iconography, club flyers, trade union banners, prog rock and political propaganda. The common denominator among this material is a quest for idealism and enlightenment; a desire for some form of transcendence.

His sculptural installations are provocative hybrids that often combine new technologies with old techniques. For instance, How To Change Behaviour (Tiny Masters Of The World Come Out) 2006 uses a computer designed billboard alongside hand-chiselled quasi-magical contraptions. Titchner presents conflicting ideologies and outmoded ideas without mockery or cynicism, allowing the viewer to form their own conclusions. In so doing, his installation questions both our blind faith in science and our obedience to authority.

Mark’s work for Bristol is based upon a redundant reduction gear which has been drawn from the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery collection, and which the artists has used as a basis for a sculptural work that examines the tidal system of Bristol’s floating harbour, and new cut, a tidal body of water and fixed lagoon system.

With the cast iron, industrial bulk, of the reduction gear at its core the sculpture depicts these two states.  A set of reflective stainless steel discs, referring to the lunar cycle, follow an accelerated sequence of the New Cuts violent tidal motion.  Whilst the floating harbours tensioned stasis is depicted in the form of a reflecting pool which is mechanically vibrated providing a constantly shifting, hypnotic surface.  The work is part tidal clock and part absurdist machinery.

The work shall be launched in November 2012

Mark Titchner

Recent solo exhibitions include: Plateau Aurora Borealis, Peres Projects, Berlin, 2008. Run, Black River, Run, BALTIC, Gateshead, 2008. The Eye Don’t See Itself, Vilma Gold, London, 2007. IT IS YOU, Arnolfini, Bristol, 2006. Selected group exhibitions include; Psychosomatic Acid Test, GSK Contemporary, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2009.  Material Presence, 176, London, 2008.  Manifesto Marathon, Serpentine Gallery, London, 2008.  A Poem about an Inland Sea, 52nd Venice Biennale, Ukrainian Pavillion, 2007.  Turner Prize, Tate Britain, London, 2006. Between Two Deaths, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2006.

Aardman Animation:

Aardman Animations is an Academy Award winning British animation studio based in Bristol, United Kingdom. The studio is famous for its clay animation / stop-motion productions, particularly those featuring the plasticine duo Wallace & Gromit. Aardman was founded in 1972 as a low-budget project by Peter Lord and David Sproxton, who wanted to realise their dream of producing an animated motion picture.